Shocked that companies and mutual funds would invest OPM (Other People's Money) in high-risk investments, the Shocked Investor was originally on a mission to find out if our money ended up in these dubious instruments. This blog now also discusses other financial topics, such as straddles, options, gold, natural gas, agri/food stocks, and the collapse of the US Dollar.

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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Willem Buiter, Citigroup Inc.’s chief economist, said today that Portugal is insolvent and "will probably need soon to join the emergency-loan program from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund".
He added: “The market’s attention is likely to turn to Portugal’s sovereign, which at current levels of interest rates and growth rates is less dramatically but quietly insolvent,”

“We consider it likely that it will need to access the European Financial Stability Facility soon.”
According to Bloomberg, this was in a note dated yesterday.
“Despite the recent drama, we believe we have only seen the opening act, with the rest of the plot still evolving,” “Accessing external sources of funds will not mark the end of Ireland’s troubles. The reason is that, in our view, the consolidated Irish sovereign and Irish domestic financial system is de facto insolvent.”